It was a gorgeous day. Humid air bathed me in sultry tropical warmth, and sweat beaded on my forehead beneath my floppy wide-brim hat. I didn’t mind. The heat, the perspiration, and the sand between my toes was all part of the island experience.

A gull squawked in the distance. At the same time, I yawned and stretched as I reclined on my beach towel.

After an evening of crippling sickness and pain, my stomach virus had passed, and I was feeling much better already. Nate had some work to do on his laptop, and he’d suggested that I come and read a book down here on the beach while he busied himself with that. He said the sunlight would do me some good after spending the better part of a night curled around a toilet bowl. I had to admit, he was spot on. Sickness or not, I hadn’t spent enough time truly relaxing on this vacation, and that was the entire point of it.

Aside from the wedding, of course.

Ah, the big day. Just four sleeps away now. I was beyond excited to see my sister’s glowing face and gorgeous dress, and I sighed dreamily and smiled as I pictured her slowly walking down the aisle toward her blissful future. Then there’d be me, just as happy, sitting in the church pews with a wonderful man I no longer had to call my fake boyfriend. After last night’s incident—not to mention the previous night’s hours of lovemaking—I think we’d well and truly established that he was my real boyfriend now.

My smile faded, and I groaned out loud as I recalled my stupid lie to keep Nate away from me after I did a runner from our dinner date yesterday. Why did I do it? I’d already embarrassed myself around him more than once on this trip, and he’d stuck around, so obviously he didn’t care. Then I remembered the sounds I made in the bathroom before and after he came in, and my cringe worsened. Yeah, that was why I tried to keep him out. Blergh. Nothing like a bout of food poisoning to kill the mood.

I didn’t regret letting him in upon his insistence, though. It actually turned out to be quite a night. It wasn’t the same as the evening of passion we’d spent just twenty-four hours beforehand, but somehow, it was better. Apart from the barfing and stabbing stomach pains, of course.

Nate had taken wonderful care of me, even enlisting my mother’s help despite their rocky start. After she finally left, he cuddled me all night, not even caring if I was contagious. That was true intimacy. He’d shown me that he was willing to be around and support me through pretty much anything. Case in point, I got the runs and he didn’t run.

Hey, that could make a good Hallmark card…

“Georgie?” Tentative shuffling on the sand and a familiar voice saying my name made me glance up from my book again ten minutes later. Bobby was standing by my towel, his thumbs slung through the belt loops of his shorts. His posture was stiff and awkward. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

“Hey,” I said lightly, trying to ignore the elephant on the beach. “Nice day, right?”

He nodded, playing along with my small talk. “Sure is. Mind if I sit?”

I patted the towel. “Go ahead.”

He sat down next to me, digging his bare feet into the sand. “I wanted to have a chat about a few things, get some stuff off my chest.”

Uh-oh, this sounded serious. I pushed my sunglasses up my nose. “What do you want to talk about?”

I wasn’t sure why I asked. I had a feeling I could answer my own question with just one word. Nate.

“My brother,” Bobby replied, confirming my suspicion. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I doubt I’d be the first to say that certain parts of this trip have been awkward as hell.”

I let out a short, humorless bark of laughter. “No shit.”

He looked out across the ocean, eyebrows pulled down in concentration. “I can only imagine what he’s told you about me. He wouldn’t be exaggerating, either.”

My eyes widened slightly. “How so?”

He sighed and began to trace random patterns into the sand with his fingertips. “It’s a long story. Guess I should start at the beginning.”

I smiled. “That’s exactly what Nate says.”

Bobby smiled faintly. “Well, he is my brother.” The smile slowly faded. “I assume he’s told you about our mom?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t want you to think I’m using this as an excuse or a crutch, but after she died, I had depression for a while.” He quickly cleared his throat. “A long while.”

My eyebrows drew together, and I scooted a little closer to him. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. Libby never said anything.”

“Not your fault. I asked her not to, and you and I haven’t really had a chance to talk about this stuff in the past.” He shrugged. “And you know what I’m like. Keep shit to myself.”

“Yup, I kinda figured that when I showed up here with your brother without a clue you were related.”

He smiled thinly. “Yeah. Anyway, like I said, I know it’s not an excuse, but when I was going through all that stuff, I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. Guess you could say I was being self-destructive.” He paused and puffed out a breath of air between his lips. “I treated Nate like total dog shit. I’m sure he told you what I said to him when his company blew up.”

I nodded stiffly. “Yeah, he did.”

He arched a brow. “And I’m also sure you wanted to push me off a cliff and make Libby call off the wedding when you heard it.”

I shook my head. “It’s up to Libby who she marries. Wouldn’t be my place to ruin things for you two, and she mentioned the other day that you had quite a few regrets regarding Nate. So I figured you probably felt bad about what you said, at least.” I hesitated for a second and fidgeted with my hat. “Having said that, it was a really shitty thing for you to say. Nate’s been messed up about it for a long time.”

Bobby held up his hands. “Believe me, I know. I felt like fucking trash the second I said it. But it’s one of those things you just can’t take back, you know? Once it’s out there, that’s it.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t even mean it. I just… I don’t know. I can’t even try to rationalize my thought process at the time. I was all screwed up. But I guess some horrible part of me wanted to drag him down to my level, or something like that. I was jealous of how well he was suddenly doing. Even though he’s a year younger than me, he’s always seemed so far ahead. I’ve always just been along for the ride.”

“He said you helped him set up his company in the early years,” I said gently.

“Yeah, but I did fuck all. He did most of the work.” He looked down at the sand again. “Either way, I was a monster to him, blaming him like that. I’m surprised he even let me stay at the brokerage.”

I was too, but I didn’t have the heart to say it. Bobby obviously felt terrible enough already.

When I didn’t say anything, he kept talking to fill the awkward silence. “I’ve always wished I could build a time machine and go back to the moment before I said that shit to him and stop myself. Our relationship pretty much died the second I said it.”

I tilted my head to the side and fixed him with a critical gaze. “Did you ever apologize?”

“I tried, but after what I said, the only time he ever spoke to me was when other people were around at work. Obviously I couldn’t say anything in front of them, and then whenever I managed to get him alone, he’d make some excuse to leave before I could get the words out. That’s what it’s been like with us over the last few years. We’ve only interacted in a business context.” He sighed. “I can’t blame him, honestly. It’s my fault.”

My forehead puckered. “Did you try writing him a letter? He wouldn’t be able to ignore that.”

“No. I thought of doing it, but I didn’t know what to write, and I wanted to say it all to his face. But he didn’t let me, and after a while… I gave up. I knew I’d lost him, and that was that.” He bit the inside of his cheek. “What could I even say, anyway? How can a person apologize for something like that?”

“Just saying you’re sorry is a start.”

“I guess. But I doubt things would ever be the same.” He gazed out at the azure waters of Clare Bay again, his cheeks turning slightly red. “That’s the real reason I eventually started planning to leave and start my own business. Also why I stopped telling people he was my brother. Not because I was ashamed of his rep. I was more ashamed of myself. Figured I should distance myself for good. Let him live his life without me clouding it.”

I nodded. “Right. I guess that makes sense.”

“Then this shit happened a few months ago. The theft.” He gave me a hard look. “I’ve done some pretty bad shit in my life, but I didn’t do that.”

“But Nate thinks otherwise.” I twisted my lips.

“Yep. And you know what?” I lifted my brows, and he went on. “At first, I was so fucking angry at him for accusing me. Even though it all pointed straight to me, it seemed so obvious it was a set-up. Like, how dumb would I have to be? I was so furious over the whole thing that I almost forgot it was my own fault our relationship was fucked. That’s how pissed he got me.”

I stayed silent, waiting for him to go on. I wasn’t entirely sure where he was going with the story now.

“He created all this red tape and drama for my startup, all because he was convinced I was guilty. Like I said a while ago, I’ve had the feds breathing down my neck for months, because he kept telling them to dig into me as the prime suspect.”

“Uh-huh....”

“So yeah, I was mad. But at the same time, I felt like I kinda deserved it after what I did to him. Like it was my penance. So in the end, I didn’t say jack-shit to anyone, no matter how angry I was over the whole shit-storm. I could have, you know. Could’ve refused to sign that NDA and told all the investors that a major theft occurred there. They would’ve pulled out in droves.”

“That’s true.”

“So why would I do that, Georgie?” Bobby’s eyes were narrowed now. “If I actually wanted to ruin him like he’s so hell-bent on ‘proving’ to everyone, why did I keep quiet?”

I held up a hand. “I know. I’ve thought of that myself.” I chewed on my lower lip for a second, my eyebrows furrowing. “But if you don’t blame him for thinking so poorly of you, why were you such a douche to him when we got here? You got up and started shouting as soon as you saw him. You said some pretty nasty stuff.”

“I’m not proud of that either,” Bobby said with a sigh, picking at a fingernail. “I guess I just snapped. I know I did him wrong all those years ago, but I didn’t take his money. He’s done nothing but accuse me of doing it, though, so when he showed up, I immediately jumped to the worst possible scenario in my mind. I assumed he’d come here on a mission to destroy my wedding as part of his supposed retribution, and I saw red. It’s one thing to hate me and try and stop my business from taking off, because maybe I deserve that. But to mess with my relationship is another thing entirely. I couldn’t take it.”

“Oh.” I nodded slowly, then pursed my lips. “You know we didn’t come here to ruin anything, right? It really was a coincidence.”

“I know that now. You guys are clearly together for real. So that’s why I wanted to talk to you about all this. I wanted to tell you my side of things before I married your sister, and I wanted to apologize to you for how shitty and awkward it’s been. I feel responsible.”

I smiled gently. “It hasn’t been shitty. The island is amazing, and we’ve had a good time.”

He returned my smile. “Well, thanks for saying that. It really is a great place, huh?”

“Yeah.” I hesitated for a moment, picking at a nail. Then I looked back over at Bobby. “Sorry if you don’t want to talk about this anymore, but… did you get help?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine now. Just have a lot of regrets. Guess that’ll never change.”

I patted his shoulder. “I get it. But I’m glad you got help. I have a friend who suffered from depression a while ago. I know how much it can mess a person up.”

“Yeah, and it’s not what people assume it is. It’s not like I sat around crying all day, or anything like that. It was more like numbness and exhaustion. Brain and body. I just had no motivation to do anything, and my usual personality was just… gone.”

“Yup.” I nodded slowly. “My friend couldn’t get out of bed a lot of days.”

His forehead wrinkled. “She okay now?”

“Yeah, she’s fine.”

“Good.”

We lapsed into a comfortable silence as we looked out across the sparkling ocean, taking in the spectacular view as a sudden sea breeze whipped up some bigger waves. They crashed onto the shore, splattering white foam over the uniquely-pink sand.

I turned back to Bobby a few minutes later. “Hey, look, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you stole all that money.”

His forehead crinkled. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Huh, I kinda assumed you were with Nate on that issue.”

I shook my head. “I’ll be honest, I’ve flip-flopped over it. I was convinced you did it for a while. But my sister is smart. I don’t think she’d marry a guy who was truly shady. All other things considered, I think you’re right—someone probably set you up.”

He raised a brow. “Does Nate know you think that?”

I looked down at my sandy feet as guilt pricked at my insides. “We haven’t talked about it since he told me how you lashed out at him after your mom passed, but it’s bound to come up soon. So I guess we’ll discuss it then. I’d rather wait till we’re back home, though.” I hesitated and picked up a handful of sand, letting it fall through my fingers as I spread them out. “Maybe I can convince him. I know Libby wants nothing more than for everyone to get along, and I want the same.”

“Yeah, me too. I’ve gotta say, I’m glad I have you on my side in this. Can’t tell you what a relief that is to hear.” Bobby’s shoulders sagged, and he patted my arm.

“Well, isn’t this just lovely?”

I jumped at the sarcastic voice and turned around. Nate was standing on the sand behind us, his face dark. Something tightened and twisted inside me, like the wringing of a wet rag.

“How long have you been there?” Bobby asked, eyes widening.

Nate’s lips were set in a grim line. “Long enough. It’s nice to know where you stand, Georgie.”

Before I could say a word, he turned and strode away.